Los Angeles: Black, Queer, Immigrant Students Fight and Protect Against Anti-DEI attacks!

Host Manuela Arciniegas (Communities for Just Schools Fund) sits down with Joseph Williams, executive director of Students Deserve, and youth organizer/scholar Kahlila Williams, to spotlight how Black, queer, and immigrant students in Los Angeles are organizing for real safety and belonging. From defunding school police and defending the Black Student Achievement Plan to winning investment in LGBTQIA+ studies and Dream Centers, and building community self-defense against ICE: This debut episode traces the strategies, coalitions, and abolitionist vision powering youth-led education justice in 2025. A moving conversation about transforming schools from sites of control into places of care, dignity, and love, led by the young people living it.